Chapter 165: Pain That Never Left
Adonis and Millia went inside.
However...
T he golden radiance of the Cube did not lead to a sanctuary. Instead, it expanded into a cold, clinical void that snatched the air from Adonis’s lungs.
The sensation of his Chaos Physique, the weight of his crown, and the warmth of Millia’s hand vanished.
He opened his eyes to the harsh, flickering blue light of a monitor.
The smell of tomb-dust was replaced by the cloying scent of stale coffee and wind from overtaxed cooling fans.
He was no longer Adonis Kingsbane; he was Liam.
He was hunched over a desk at Artemis Games, his back screaming in protest, his eyes stinging behind square-shaped glasses.
The clock on the screen mocked him: 12:30 AM.
"I am finished, aren’t I?" he heard his own voice croak, sounding very pathetic compared to the roar of the Dragon King.
Just then, the door to the studio creaked open.
Theodore walked in, but in this nightmare,
Theo wasn’t just a traitorous junior. He was a giant, his shadow stretching across the ceiling like a Reaper’s robes.
"The boss has the law, Senior," Theo sneered, "You’re just an orphan with a mountain of debt. Why do you even try? You’re alone. No one loves a loser who hides in a corner to release his frustration. You’ll die in this chair, and the AI will delete your memory before your body is even cold."
Liam looked at his trembling hands. They were thin, pale, and covered in keyboard callouses. The feeling of his loneliness, the years of hunger, and the bitter mockery of his own "impossible dreams" began to drown him.
The void of his past life was a black hole, trying to suck back the soul that had finally found its fire.
"I hate this life," Liam whispered, tears blurring the blue light of the screen.
In the next layer of the illusion, Millia stood in a darkness so absolute it felt like she was buried alive.
Flash!
Suddenly, a light flared.
She was back in the palace, but it wasn’t her home.
She was on her knees, her maid’s uniform torn and stained.
Adonis sat on the throne, but his face was a blur of shifting features. He looked down at her with a gaze of pure indifference.
"You were a convenience, Millia," the voice boomed, cold and hollow. "You’re just a maid who dreamed of being a sweetheart. Look at yourself. You have no status, no power, and now, you have no place here. I’ve found a real queen, dragon queen. You’re just a footnote in a story I’m tired of writing."
Millia felt the phantom pain of a kick to her stomach as the sound of the other wives’ creepy laughter filled her ears.
Maid. Nobody. Replacement. Alone.
"No," Millia gasped, her heart pounding against her ribs.
The pain was so vivid she almost believed it. She looked at her hands, expecting to see a cleaning rag, but she felt the faint, lingering tingle of her darkness daggers.
--
Back in the office, Liam’s hand moved toward the mouse to execute the self-destruct command on Sword Evolution Online.
He wanted to destroy everything, to erase himself along with his work. But then, a thought flickered through the exhaustion.
He remembered the "Chaos Ultima" he had just performed. He remembered the feeling of the gold rippling under his palm.
"What am I doing? Artemis Games didn’t create me," Liam growled, his voice shifting, gaining the resonance of the Dragon King. "And Theo didn’t break me. I survived 30 years of hell. Then I built a world out of nothing while the world tried to grind me into dust. I have wives, I have a family. I am not alone anymore."
He looked at the monitor. The code for Sword Evolution Online began to glow with a violet hue.
"This isn’t my end," he shouted, standing up and slamming his fist onto the desk. The office walls began to crack like cheap glass.
"This was just the prologue! I am the Author of my own destiny!"
--
In the dark courtyard, Millia stood up. She ignored the laughter and the cold gaze of the fake Adonis.
She reached into her chest, pulling out the memory of that quiet night when he had called her his sweetheart.
How could she even forgot? It was a bond of souls, after all.
Millia screamed at the shadowy wives:
"You can’t take his love from me. Because I know his heart better than you know your own lies!"
She plunged her hand into the darkness, drawing her daggers out of thin air.
Slash!
With a single, brutal strike, she sliced through the illusion of the palace.
The two illusions collided and shattered at the same time.
Adonis and Millia slammed back into reality, standing on the obsidian floor of the Golden Cube.
The transition was so violent they both fell to their knees, gasping for air.
The Undead Master stood before them, his skeletal form wreathed in golden flames, his jaw agape.
The Master was in disbelief.
"You... you broke the Mirror of Regret? But that is the weight of a thousand years of pain! No mortal can look at their own misery and not be consumed! So how did you two do? How did you survive? This is impossible"
Adonis stood up, his dark hair flowing as the violet Chaos energy surged around him, more powerful than ever. He gripped his flute which transformed into Vexa’s sword form.
His other hand reached out for Millia, pulling her to his side.
"Tch. Nice try, bag of bones. You don’t know how I’ve spent my whole life in the dark."
His voice was cold and terrifyingly calm.
"Your mirror didn’t show me anything I haven’t already conquered. Now, it’s time I showed you a real nightmare."
Millia leaned against him, her eyes burning with a fierce loyalty that no dream could ever break.
"Adonis, give this creature the same amount of pain he forced upon us. Make him so miserable that even hell shall reject his very existence."
"Sweetheart, you won’t have to worry about that. Just watch!" Adonis smirked, stepping forward, along with the Chaos sword.